Grapes

*I will preface this with the statement that life is not always roses. It has been suggested to me recently that I might want to try and throw a little more my personal emotions into my writing. That this is a tough time and its not always just about whats going on around me, but whats also inside as well, that matters. Its just that its not so consistently as positive as I make it seem here. This next entry is something that I wrote because, at the time of writing it, that is how I felt. It doesn’t mean that its a constant struggle or that I’m not doing well in the long run, just that this revolution is not as easy as I would like it to be…and its hard admitting that.*

Maybe I should start doing some of the exercises in the body image workbook thats been sitting on my desk for the last two months. Its just been staring at me collecting dust without even so much as a single crack in its glossy spine. I have it because I thought it would be helpful but its sitting there almost as a trophy of strength and triumph. Do I think I don’t need the same lengths of help that others do? Am I really that much better if somewhere in my disillusioned mind I still think I’m tougher than everyone else? Why does it become second nature to feel I’m not allowed to show my weaknesses? Its difficult enough to even let leak that I have them. All I know is that right now I don’t feel pretty. I don’t feel myself. I’m not even sure what that would feel like if I did. I feel more nauseous than anything else…or maybe its that I’m hungry. I can’t even tell anymore.

I wish I knew if there was an end to this or not. It sometimes seems that the healthier I get physically the more often I feel confusion mentally. I’ve just been getting this common undermining sense that some part of me is lost. Its not that I felt any better in the depths of the eating disorder, its just that at that point I had something that I could actually pin my sadness to. The emptiness had a name then. There is no way in hell I would want to revisit that misery but I’m not real keen on how I feel right now either. Its troublesome but worth contemplation.

Volumes of Issues

Walking alone, half a lap ahead of my peers, I watch the quiet surroundings of the fresh air park rotate in their slow carousel around me. I’m in a more contemplative mood although part of what I’m to work out in my head is whether or not I should be talking to my friends instead of thinking about things that have the potential to bring my mood down. Its just that between last night and so far today there has been enough drama around here to suffocate any amount of good intentions. I’m trying to not let it get to me. I’m trying to stay positive but its hard.

People that have been here longer than me are starting to have problems stemming from the prospect of going home. Some are having extreme family issues that peak into screaming matches both over the phone and in person when people come to visit. Some of the newer people are just having problems with the meals in general and there have been a lot of tears shed at the table recently. Some are also having food issues due to being scared of going above the goal weight that they have already met while here. Reaching “maintainance weight” and still trying to restrict your eating, still accepting that you can more or less eat whatever you want is harder than can be represented in words. I can admit, too, that seeing my peers, my friends, have their own questions and doubts does scare me. I have to admit it because, if denied, it has the potential to sneak up and just floor me.

I care about these people because I see at least some aspect of myself in each and every one of them. Its difficult to just stand by and know that I can’t really help them with their issues. I want to. Badly. Its in my nature. If I choose to do that though I know it would jeopardize my own recovery. I just can’t go back there in any part of my head right now without the potential of losing what I have worked so hard for. Some encouraging words and just letting them know that I understand is about as far as I can safely go. I have been both stunned by my positivity and in love with it in such a way that I’m terrified of losing it.

This is why I hang back. They walk and I hang back just absorbing my surroundings, absorbing my thoughts. There will be a right way to do this. This is just one in a line of speed bumps that will unfailingly be along my road to recovery. I hate to get so cliché with the terminology but is just what best describes it in this case. It is a road we are each traveling, a journey we are each individually on. And, in the end, it is each of us who decides just how big the obstacles along the way will be.

Oh happy day

Today was officially “Sneak some zucchini onto your neighbor’s porch day”, or at least it is according to the obscure holidays website we found while surfing the interweb a few weeks ago. I just finished writing that fact on the dry erase board in the dining room after first taking off yesterday’s declaration of “National Mustard Day”.

I’m harboring a strangely funky positive attitude and definitely not complaining about it. Maybe its because its nice to have everyone here again, as opposed to yesterday when I was basically alone all day while everyone else went to the Cloisters museum…stupid RTU.  Maybe its because I have had such a driving success with my little foray into the world of liquid acrylics. I seriously can’t get enough of them. I think they will be my favorite medium for a while. Maybe though its the prospect of being off of RTU tomorrow and starting the day off with the first menu I got to plan myself.

Who knows. I’m not going to question this good feeling though…

I’m just going to live it!

The Confi-dance

It’s the last day of July and in about 48 hours it will have been three weeks since I left home. I’ve talked to Chris on the phone, through email, and via instant message more than once a day. My mom and I chat every few days by phone or computer. And I have kept in touch with the guys at work where everything seems to be running smoothly. I miss home, my job at the tattoo shop, my animals, my life…but not in the way that I’m homesick. I miss it all in the way that I am just so excited to return and have things be that much different in good ways, for me to be that much different because I’ll be healthy.

In my lifetime I have never truly believed that I really was deserving of a change like this. At the same time though I have never been so consciously proud of myself as I am each day with this. I have been proud of random acts, certain decisions, or pieces of artwork in the past but I’ve always been proud of the outcome and not specifically the person doing the deed. It’s almost like, in my mind, I just considered it a fluke that I happened to be the one doing those things. It’s truly different, and for me foreign, to actually have this belief in myself.

Thats not to say that I don’t feel the old pull of tension when I put myself in the place of something I have created. I’m not outwardly boastful about things and I try to keep an air of modesty when I talk to other people. Inwardly, though, I am much more conscious that I am the one who accomplished these goals. It didn’t happen by accident – it was me.

Sometimes my mind will try and tell me the same old refrains about how I don’t deserve to feel good about a deed. It tells me that I didn’t do it well enough, that I should have done more. It speaks to me about how everything I do now thats good is just another thing I owe the world for screwing up so bad in my past. Its like every good action is part of the penance I own for messing things up and hurting others years ago. But how long do I have to believe my every action is part of some cosmic repayment plan for my past? I’ve been told time and time again that I deserve to be happy but it wasn’t until now that I really believed that to be true to any extent.

Now it may not be a recognizable change outwardly but, inside, for once I feel truly good about myself. I’m walking a difficult road right now but I know that I am the one doing it. I am accomplishing things now that I truly believed I did not deserve to accomplish before…and it feels good. I know the potential for amazing new things is that much  more heightened because I am here now doing what I need to do for myself.

Now I just have to keep it up while thinking clearly about the next thing life throws my way. No matter what that may be.

Positives

I am so very ready to be done with this activity monitor business. The tape holding it to my skin is getting itchy and its a pain in the butt jostling all the wires around every time I change clothes or use the bathroom. I know I’m griping and I only have about 3 hours of its company left but, hey, were supposed to be honest with ourselves here.

Today marks the 3rd day of the 2200 calorie regimine. It also brings with it the onset of my first daily Ensure Plus shake. People keep asking me how I’m doing with the new additions to my menu, whether I’m anxious or might perceive any problems with them, but right now I don’t. Not yet. I try and leave the answer confident but open-ended. Right now I am still hungry between meals which makes acceptance of all of this that much easier. So long as I can continue to not let my mind wander into the zone of food analization I think I will be okay.

In the past, although I always have liked their milk-shakey taste, Ensure drinks have been a source of apprehension for me. Mostly this is due to their presence in my life being a sign of a major change underfoot. Through time and association that is just the weight they have come to hold with me. I do my best to keep a positive attitude through this because my acceptance and continued determination depend on it. I count myself lucky for the ease at which I have had staying in that frame of mind so far but, as much as I would hope, I can’t say for sure that things will continue this way. I suspect there will come a time, as the additions continue, when I’ll be full all the time…but I’m choosing to deal with it as it happens.

For me its been easier to take things as they come both in dealing with anxiety and also with placing trust in the onset of events. When I look to the future, in terms of being able to uphold the lifestyle I am learning here, I don’t know for sure what is going to happen. Its easier for me though to stay determined and upbeat as long as I remember that, although the possibility for just about anything is there, I don’t have to deal with the mights and coulds of it all right now.

So today, yea I’ve got the addition of the first Ensure, but if it helps quell my hunger between breakfast and lunch, then bring it on!

Through the doors

Its been done. I’m here. Now it will just take some time for things to fall into place. Through the expected amount of stand-off-ishness the other girls (and one guy) have slowly extended tentative feelers of friendliness. There is a hesitance that lingers like mist around each attempt at outreach as we try to mask our individual fragility in not-so-subtle ways. personal experience has shown me that the act of normal conversation can require more effort than one might think possible, but we try. The toe-hold we have on common ground will get firmer with time. We are really not so different, them and I.

Promptly at noon, having already been tapped and drained of the necessary bodily fluids for analysis, I sat down to lunch with the group. The food arrives on hospital trays with the heated plates hidden beneath their thick plastic domed shells that have always reminded me of the top of R2D2’s head in Star Wars. We are each provided with a labeled list of the exact tray contents including portion sizes and the precise amount of pre-packaged condiments that have been deemed appropriate for the specific meal being served. Each is individualized in accordance with its intended’s needs. Mine is just the right size for someone who hasn’t been presented with a hot meal in longer than she can remember. Or at least hasn’t been accepting of a hot meal in that time. I surprise even myself at the speed with which I gobble it up. Not messily or chaotically, but it does make me reflect on post-war POW footage.

To me the menu was different for obvious reasons but apparently its items varried from the norm for the others as well. The main component was a grilled cheese sandwich on pumpernickel bread that was stuffed to the gills with red and green peppers, carrot slices, and onions. It wasn’t something I would have normally ordered on the “outside” but it wasn’t bad…even with the onions. The sandwich was accompanied by lentil soup, which I don’t remember ever having had before, and a small bowl of red grapes.

For the most part we chewed away in silent concentration, consciously aware of the rate/time/quantity ratio. Conversation was sparse and I was lightly peppered with the usual get-to-know-you Q and A.

After the meal we stayed where we were for whats known as “process group”. Its something that happens a few times a week and is basically what the title calls it. We process our feelings, thoughts, and questions about the previous meal. It is a lot like the other groups, in which what people contribute reflects the level of interest anyone would find in it.

General admission activities filled out the time block between lunch and dinner with required paperwork and doctoral meet-n-greets.